Subject: Modern History

Why in the News?

The Union Ministry of Culture is planning to revive and relaunch the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) and is considering the formation of an autonomous body to help preserve India’s ancient texts.

About the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM):

• Formed in 2003 by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
• It is managed by the National Archives of India.
• Objective:
  • To document, conserve, digitize, and disseminate India’s manuscript heritage.
  • The mission has set up over 100 Manuscripts Resource Centres and Manuscripts Conservation Centres across India.
  • India has an estimated 10 million manuscripts, covering a range of themes, languages, scripts, and illustrations.
• What is a Manuscript?
  • A manuscript is a handwritten document on materials like paper, bark, cloth, metal, or palm leaf.
  • These documents are at least 75 years old and hold scientific, historical, or aesthetic value.
  • Manuscripts primarily contain knowledge content, unlike historical records that provide direct historical information.

Achievements and Challenges:

• The NMM has documented metadata for 5.2 million manuscripts and digitized 300,000 titles, though only a third have been uploaded.
• Concerns were raised over mismatches between digitized data and original manuscripts, requiring correction.
• Of the 130,000 manuscripts uploaded, only 70,000 are accessible for viewing due to the absence of an access policy, which limits public availability, especially since 80% of manuscripts are privately owned.
• NMM has conducted preventive and curative conservation of 9 crore folios over the past 21 years.

Why in the News?

PM has participated in the celebration of International Abhidhamma Divas and recognition of Pali as a classical language.

About International Abhidhamma Divas

• It is celebrated Ashwin Purnima (Full Moon), to commemorate Buddha’s descent from Tavatimsa-devaloka (a celestial realm) to Sankassiya (Sankisa Basantapur, UP).
  • It actually marks the conclusion of a 3-month rain retreat, known as Varsavasa or Vasa, during which monks remain in a single location for meditation and prayer.
• The celebration involves Dhamma discourses, academic sessions, and exhibitions that connect ancient wisdom with modern spiritual practices.
• Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi, hosts the event, organized by the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC).

Teachings of Abhidhamma

• The Abhidhamma provides a detailed framework for understanding the mind, matter, and existence.
• It addresses complex concepts like birth, death, and mental phenomena in a precise and abstract manner.
• Abhidhamma is known for its analytical approach:
  • It categorizes mental states and emotions.
  • It explains causal relationships that determine mental and material phenomena.
• The teachings cover topics like:
  • Moral and mental states
  • Aggregates (components of existence)
  • Causal links
  • Path to enlightenment.

Historical Background and Significance

• Abhidhamma Divas commemorates the day when Lord Buddha returned to earth after teaching the Abhidhamma in the Tavatimsa realm.
• The descent is marked by the Ashokan Elephant Pillar at Sankassiya, highlighting its historical significance.
• The celebration coincides with the end of the Rainy Retreat (Vassa), a period of monastic seclusion, and the Pavarana festival, a time of mutual reflection among monks.

Why in the News?

The 2024 Nobel Prize has been awarded to South Korean writer Han Kang for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

Who is Han Kang?

• Han Kang is a South Korean writer born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea.
• She is known for her poetic and experimental writing style that confronts themes of historical trauma, violence, grief, and the fragility of human life.
• After starting her literary career with poetry, she became widely recognized for her novels that address complex human emotions and the consequences of social and political structures.

Her Literary Works:

• The Vegetarian (2007): This novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, revolves around a woman who decides to stop eating meat and faces extreme reactions from her family. The story explores themes of control, independence, and violence. It was her breakthrough novel, translated into English in 2015.
• Human Acts (2016): Set against the backdrop of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, this novel tells the story of the massacre of protesting students by the South Korean military. Han Kang gives voice to the victims of history with a style that is both experimental and visionary.
• The White Book (2017): An elegy dedicated to a sibling who passed away shortly after birth. The novel is a meditation on grief, narrated through white objects, symbolizing loss and memory.
• Greek Lessons (2023): This novel, first published in Korean in 2011, tells the story of a woman who loses her ability to speak and her teacher, who is losing his sight. The novel explores loss, intimacy, and the connection between language and identity.
• We Do Not Part (2025, forthcoming): This upcoming novel focuses on two women confronting a hidden massacre in Korean history from the 1940s. It explores how trauma can be transformed into art.

Citation for Nobel Prize 2024

• The Swedish Academy’s official bio-bibliography highlights her ability to create universal narratives using a poetic and radical imagination. 
• Han Kang is praised for addressing patriarchy, violence, and historical injustices, while also examining the connections between body and soul and the living and the dead.
• The academy notes that she has become an innovator in contemporary prose, showing how literature can speak the truth through her powerful and experimental style.